


After the Blue Shadow

by ShadowSpires



Series: Countdown to Clone Wars 2020 [5]
Category: Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: Blue Shadow Virus, Episode Tag, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-01-28
Updated: 2020-01-28
Packaged: 2021-02-27 10:54:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,515
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22462165
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ShadowSpires/pseuds/ShadowSpires
Summary: During the Blue Shadow virus crisis on Naboo, Obi-Wan had been the one to call Cody with the news.
Relationships: CC-2224 | Cody/CT-7567 | Rex
Series: Countdown to Clone Wars 2020 [5]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1612177
Comments: 3
Kudos: 166





	After the Blue Shadow

Obi-Wan had been the one to call.

Both times.

Bleak and worried and obviously cramped in a little corner of Skywalker’s beloved rust bucket, he’d looked Cody straight in the eye and told him that Rex was lost.

Trapped.

Stuck underground and contaminated by one of the worst viruses the galaxy had ever seen, brought back to life by a madman. 

They were looking for the cure, the Jedi assured his commander. They would find it, and get the 501st, Ashoka, and the Naboo senators out.

His voice was strong, determined, assuring. The voice he used to assure planetary leaders that  _ of course  _ the GAR would do their best to limit collateral damage, all while knowing it was fairly hopeless, when facing Seppie tactics.

It probably fooled his former Padawan, lost in his own stubborn determination as he was. But Cody could read the doubts in his General’s eyes, and his voice was hoarse when he thanked him for updating them on the situation.

He closed the comm, took a deep breath in the fragile silence of the bridge.

Another.

“You heard the General,” He announced on the next exhale. “We’ll have to keep up the 501st’s slack while they’re goofing off on Naboo. Everyone back to work.”

He wouldn’t give up on Rex or his General until it was all over.

Then... grief would have to come later.

It was Obi-Wan who called again, triumphant and smiling and looking, to Cody, almost giddy with relief at the outcome of the debacle.

“He’s sick,” he said quietly to Cody, after he brought him up to date on the general situation. “Sicker than he wants to admit. But he’s going to be fine. I promise, Cody.”

Cody closed his eyes and leaned for just a moment against the console, letting himself feel the relief of that.

“Thank you, sir,” he said again, still hoarse, but with relief this time.

“I’m diverting the 212th to Naboo for clean up of the lab and to review the planetary security protocols, Commander,” Obi-Wan said, official words tempered by the gentle smile directed at him. “Do try to take it easy and not overwhelm the local security teams, they are good men.”

Read: find out how this lab got built on a supposedly secure planet, but also work with the locals: take it easy and spend some downtime on a beautiful planet.

“As you say, sir,” he responded, hoping his General could read the gratefulness in his tone.

“I’ll see you soon, Cody,” Obi-Wan said before the comm closed.

~~~

Cody finally, finally makes it to the infirmary wing of Theed Palace’s unnecessarily sprawling halls — hours after they had landed. No matter Obi-Wan’s sympathetic assistance through protocol and delegating for the initial clean up, it still took time to meet the security forces, who weren’t at all happy about outsiders being called in the check their work, but even less happy that this had happened under their noses. 

Cody would be more sympathetic, he would, except his  _ riduur _ is in the infirmary and he hasn’t been able to see him. He’s still diplomatic, because he’s a professional and he’s not going to make it any more difficult for himself  _ or _ Obi-Wan if he can help it, but he still powers through the initial meeting with brutal efficiency. 

When he finally does make it to the infirmary, Rex is asleep, grey and gaunt against the white hospital sheets.

He is in his own curtained off section away from the rest of the men Cody saw as he walked through the medical wing -- nodding to them as he went but not allowing any more delays.

That’s not a good sign, in Cody’s mind. Either there is a medical reason for the isolation, or Rex hasn’t even felt well enough to override the inexplicable nat-born impulse to separate officers from their men. 

He sits in the little chair at Rex’s bedside, idly noting the nervous claw marks on the arm. He’s glad to know Commander Tano was at least well enough to visit.

“A virus,  _ riduur _ ?” He says to the still, but gloriously breathing body before him. “How are you going to sucker new shines away from the 212th when it gets out you almost let a microbe take you out?”

He’s thrilled at the irritated slice of amber that slits up at him, and the two fingers raised in a very distinct gesture.

“I’m Captain kriffing Rex,” he rasps through the mask they’ve got on his face. “The shinies will just start telling stories about the horrors of germs. It’ll be good for them. Make the medics happy.”

Cody raises and eyebrow, smirking, even as he carefully takes Rex’s hand, careful of the lines running into his veins.

“Should I start addressing your orders like that, Captain Kriffing? It might be a bit of a reputation to live up to.”

Rex says a very impolite word at him, but some of the lines have eased around his dark-circled and alarmingly sunken eyes.

Cody laughs, and leans down to press his forehead against Rex’s in a Keldabe kiss, feeling the mask dig uncomfortably against his face and not even caring. He can almost feel the lingering upset draining out of the men in the rest of the room, where they watch them through the curtain he deliberately left open when he came in.

Better.

But even better is the way Rex’s eyes soften further, the way he leans his cheek into the hand Cody brings up to cup it.

“Just try it, and I’ll start telling people that the reason we run into the Naboo so often is the senator has a crush on you,” Rex threatens, and his men snicker.

Cody snorts.

“Trying to get me killed by your general, vod?”

Rex grins a toothy grin behind the oxygen mask, and it makes Cody want to kiss him  _ so badly. _

“Who said I was talking about that senator?” He asks, the picture of wicked humour as his men collapse on their beds (or out of them) with laughter.

Cody clips Rex on the top of the head, showy, but it’s so gentle it’s far more a caress of too-long golden hair than a rebuke, and then he’s laughing as well, because that’s just the kind of absurd rumour that the shinies would take and run with.

“I surrender,” Cody laughs. “I won’t tell the shinies you fell to a measly little virus if you won’t tell them the walking disaster has a crush on me”

“Deal,” Rex says, but it rasps around the smirk into a cough that just doesn’t want to stop. Cody jumps up to sit on the bed beside him and pulls him up to lean against his shoulder, holding him against him until it finally dies down, then grabbing for the cup of water and helping Rex pull off the mask and take small sips until he relaxes against him.

“I’m never complaining about vaccinations again,” Rex tells Cody ruefully when it’s over, though now he’s very much leaning against his husband’s chest instead of laying on the bed, and not at all inclined to change that. “Or letting anyone else do it, either.”

“Kix will be thrilled,” Cody remarks sarcastically, but he’s holding Rex a little tighter than he would normally.

“Kix is going to try to shoot me himself,” Rex grumbles, leaning his head into Cody’s chest. “Like it’s my fault some madman went nuts with a virus while he was on Coruscant.”

***

Obi-Wan obviously had a hell of a scare in the whole situation. He was dealing with it about as well as he dealt with emotion in general: by working harder than ever and only acknowledging its effects on  _ other _ people, not on himself.

He’d sent Cody and the mostly-recovered Rex up to the lake country of Naboo to do a little preliminary questioning and surveying of the area’s defenses. That was good, so they could figure out the allocation of resources, and would have taken two days at max. He gave them a week, and the Senator put them up in a little cottage on the shore of a lake. She apologized for its size, being a single room partitioned into living and sleeping areas, but they’d told her truthfully that it was parsecs better than bunks.

They bounced around the space aimlessly in the first of their free days. Said free day came after they called on day two to tell Obi-Wan they were done and he’d blithely informed them that they’d done a good job, but the requested resources would only be able to get there at the end of the week, why didn’t they just double-check, and signed out with a kind of manic cheer that meant he hadn’t slept in at least three days.

...When they got back, Cody was probably going to kiss his General in thanks for this time. 

Then he was going to sit on him until he slept.

Until then, he was going to take everything this moment offered him, of peace, and time, and Rex. 

**Author's Note:**

> Come say hi on tumblr at shadow-spires!


End file.
